If either Attorney General Jim Hood or Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves is elected Mississippi’s next governor, it won’t be because of their public speaking, bless their hearts.

Their back-to-back stump speeches were, ostensibly, the highlight of the political speech-i-fying at the Neshoba County Fair last week, a potential preview of the 2019 gubernatorial battle. Well … they still have a good while to practice, or search for speech writers before then.

Mississippi’s top politicians and candidates have to run a gauntlet the likes of which those in most other states no longer do: giving a 10-minute, old-timey stump speech in the sweltering heat under the Founders Square pavilion at the Neshoba County Fair.

It’s a tradition that started in 1896 (the camp-meeting, livestock fair itself dates back to 1889) and state politicians, and even a few national ones, have used the fair as a forum to reach voters in rural Mississippi and Americana.

Expectations are high. Fair speakers are expected to provide fire-and-brimstone political oratory, rouse the crowd, call out their opponents, tell funny jokes and break some news.

Some do. Some don’t.

Former Gov. William Winter, with nary a note in hand, bounded onto the Neshoba stage at age 91 in 2014 and gave a passionate, energetic speech that drew a long standing ovation and brought tears to many an eye. The man can give a speech, and his gentlemanly Southern drawl — he can draw the word help out into three syllables — makes you want to shout “Huzzah!” whatever that means.

Gov. Phil Bryant ain’t too shabby a public speaker. He’s never completely finished more than two sentences in a row, but he’s very enthusiastic and always keeps a crowd’s attention as he paces the stage like a televangelist after three espressos. This year he waved around a golden shovel onstage (a couple of years ago a down-ticket candidate broke out a garden hoe during her speech).

Former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove in 2005 at Neshoba gave one of the more unusual speeches I’ve ever heard. He opened with a long passage from Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” then talked a while in his high-pitched voice about how neighbors need to help each other, then closed by reciting in full Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It sort of made my brain hurt, but it was memorable. Cartoonist Marshall Ramsey at the time dubbed it the “Squeaky Lincoln” address.

Public speaking is hard. Doing it well is an art. I’ve watched politicians doing it for nearly 30 years now, and I respect them for even trying.

I’m a terrible public speaker. I get nervous and stammer. And I sweat. I mean rivers, even if it’s cold. I recently was on a panel speaking to a crowd at a journalism convention, and a friend afterward said, “I thought that didn’t go so bad” — it was the nicest thing he could think to say. Years ago I spoke to a Stone County High School class, and as I sweated and stammered, a student in the front row felt so sorry for me she mouthed, “It’s OK. Relax.”

So with that mea culpa, back to Reeves and Hood.

They are both very smart, accomplished men who have devoted much of their adult lives to-date to public service — saaa-lute. But after having heard each deliver many speeches over the last 14 years, I can safely say no one is going to mistake either for Daniel Webster or Winston Churchill.

Reeves typically stays on script, reads from prepared remarks, and it sounds like it. He’s kinda stiff and stilted and uptight. And there’s this:

Tate Reeves cannot tell a joke. I’m sorry. He just can’t.

In person, one-on-one, Reeves has a good sense of humor — often a bit sarcastic, which I admire. But put him behind a podium and have him read a scripted joke and … crickets and cringes. But that never seems to daunt him or his speechwriters. By God they keep trying jokes.

Last year, Reeves tried a different approach: He loudly yelled most of his Neshoba speech, despite there being a perfectly functioning PA system.

As I reported last year:

“'I believe! That marriage! Is between! One man! And one woman!’ Reeves shouted to knock the cobwebs off the Founders Pavilion rafters. "And I! Ain’t! Gonna! Change! My! Mind!’”

This year, Reeves returned to his more moderate monotone reading of his speech and a few jokes. The crowd was enthralled. He tried to channel Donald Trump with his message, complaining about liberals and the liberal media and all the liberal things they do and Hood and all his liberal friends. But his delivery sounded more like Melania than The Donald.

Then there’s Hood. He speaks extemporaneously — doesn’t follow a script — and it sounds like it. He rambles. I know he has a sharp legal and political mind, but in public speeches he sounds like a guy who spends a lot of time looking for his car keys.

Hood often starts speeches with rambling stories about working on his old pickup truck or his old tractor, reloading ammunition, deer hunting or even just what he saw while driving in to speak.

The two previous years at Neshoba, he opened with meandering stories about his son being on a winning solar-car derby team that burned up much of his 10 minutes before he got down to politics and policy.

This year Hood talked a good bit in his intro about seeing his daughter’s blue hat that morning before driving down to Neshoba. Eventually, near the end of his speech, he explained that the blue hat reminded him Mississippi needs high-tech, cutting-edge jobs and opportunity to prevent Mississippi’s best and brightest young people leaving the state. For much of the speech, I thought he was just irritated that his daughter keeps her room messy.

If Reeves sounds a bit too uptight, Hood sounds as much laid back. A Hood speech is kind of like chatting with your neighbor, and the chat eventually turning to state politics.

But, as I said earlier, these two have plenty of time to hone their stump speech skills before the next election cycle. And, in this day and age, are stumping skills even required for major political office? The Neshoba County Fair political speaking is something of an anachronism.

It would appear that fundraising, mass media ads and social media savvy have become much more important.

Longtime Mississippi political columnist and longtime Neshoba Fair-goer Sid Salter put it this way a few years back: “Political speaking like that at Neshoba — where the candidate is under pressure from the heat, the crowd, and the supporters of his opponents — is a dying art. That’s why the tradition at Neshoba remains so dear to fair-goers and why politicians leave Neshoba proud to have endured the experience.”